U.Today – Cryptocurrency advocate John Deaton (who is particularly supportive of ) took to his account on social media platform X to share his opinion on the recent quarter-million dollar Bitcoin transaction made by the US government to the Coinbase (NASDAQ:) exchange.
This was part of the funds seized in 2013 from the Silk Road dark web marketplace when it was shut down and its founder Ross Ulbricht was arrested and sentenced to two life sentences.
Deaton stated that this is inconsistent with the SEC's recent policy of proclaiming Coinbase illegal.
Gary Gensler claims Coinbase is “illegal”
Deaton reminded the community that U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler has “declared war” on Coinbase by labeling its business illegal for trading altcoins, which he refers to as “unregistered securities,” laying out his charges against the exchange in June of last year.
In response, Coinbase filed a lawsuit against the regulator. However, what has happened now is that the US government has sent 3,940 BTC worth approximately $241.22 million to this exact exchange for sale. This money was initially seized from a drug dealer on the Silk Road and was later confiscated at trial in January 2024.
John Deaton called this move “nonsense on the part of our government” as it allows Gary Gensler and Senator Warren to oppose the entire cryptocurrency space, but still use the services of the largest cryptocurrency exchange platform based in the United States, Coinbase Prime. Before that, a similar sale occurred in March last year, when the US government wallet sold 9,861 coins for $216 million.
Bitcoin price falls after selling
According to cryptocurrency journalist Colin Wu, after the aforementioned transaction, the US government still holds 213,546 BTC confiscated from Silk Road, worth more than $13 billion.
The founder of on-chain data aggregator CryptoQuant believes that this sale will barely affect the price of Bitcoin on the market. However, this sale coincided with a Bitcoin price drop of 1.76%, as the world's flagship cryptocurrency fell from $61,778 to the $60,688 level. For now, BTC has recovered a bit and is trading at $61,260 at the time of writing.
This article was originally published on U.Today
